The Health Ferry (Fairy?)

10 PM rainbow



My lovely apartment at 10:30 PM



It's not hard to sleep with this much light, it's hard to GO TO BED!

I said in a brief Facebook entry on my birthday that my best present was a handsome Canadian fisherman with a big laceration on his wrist. I got a few witty responses to that—like “if you can’t take your present home with you maybe you can enjoy it while you’re here” and similar quips. Sadly, I didn’t get to do the suturing on his laceration because we also have an Australian Community Health Aid that needs to be recertified to work here after being in Australia for over 6 months, so she needed to do it. So I had to just hold his hand, so to speak, and do ancillary things. I was offered the chance to fill in every other suture after she got it basically closed, but I didn’t think it was fair to him to draw out the process any longer than necessary. Maybe that’s one of the differences between nurse training and physician training—first, last, and always we are supposed to take care of the needs of the patient before our own. And after all, he was supposed to be watching game 6 of the Stanley Cup hockey playoffs! So I have some outdated suture material and am practicing at home on placemats and such, biding my time until I get my chance.

You’d think with all the ambulance calls for drunks in distress that I’d get ONE that had fallen down and cut themselves, but so far not so. The ambulance here almost seems like Triple A for alcohoholics…AA would be a great way to prevent the need for AAA, but unfortunately the person who was the center of meetings here on the island died a year ago and I guess the meetings just fell apart.

I really am not being facetious about it…it’s a heartbreaking tragedy to see the waste of good people and the destruction that goes along with alcohol and drug addiction, and although it sure isn’t unique to Alaska, it is a problem in native communities that has decimated untold families. One of the many terrible gifts of the white man, the legacy of which still repeats itself in so many ways…Sand Point is a little different in some ways because its population has so much mixed blood and cultural influence, unlike so many of the more isolated communities in the Pribilofs, the Interior and the far north. But alcohol and drugs are a problem here, just like at home. Last night I was at the clinic attending an EMT refresher training so I could get familiar with some of the toys like the splints, inflatable pants, etc. (I don’t have any EMT training yet), and since it was being taught by the head of the EMS, when the dispatcher called for the ambulance class ended abruptly and I went along on the call.

Fortunately it was not way out in the tundra where you can only get there by 4 wheeler, so it was a short trip. Because of the public nature of this blog, I can’t say much about the call, but it was alcohol related. So I helped as best as I could in the ambulance and then worked on him in the clinic with the on-call PA and the Australian CHP until we got him stabilized. It’s all good learning for me, but heartbreaking nonetheless.

I left at 9:30 PM to hitch a ride with Laura down to the harbor, where the twice-monthy ferry, the Tustamena, was coming in at 10:30 with health care people from the main EATs office. We set up a health fair in the net shed at the city dock, staffed by traveling health fair folks who brought lots of goodies and handouts. The community was invited, and a few turned out to learn about nutrition, diabetes, safe sex, etc. It stays light so long in the summer that when there’s no school the kids routinely stay up until midnight, so I have pictures of even some little guys at that hour.

Laura photographing the ferry coming in


Here comes the ferry!


Alaska Marine Highway's The Tustamena--now running twice a month down the Aleutian Chain



Some of Sandpoint's Finest--Shane in the middle (remember the gasoline on the bonfire incident?) and our receptionist extraordinaire Melissa at the health fair

One little cutie spotted me and stopped dead, stared at me and decided that he couldn’t quite place me, but he didn’t have good memories of wherever it was we’d met last. I’d been one of the people in the exam room that held him down to look in his ears the week before. He did let me take his picture with his mardi gras beads, though.

Laura and our fabulous case manager, Cathy with her new berry bucket



Laura, Shane and my little friend

So the handsome blue-eyed Canadian skipper of the big long-line boat came back to the clinic the next day so we could take a look at his wrist and pronounce him fit to go off and fish. He’s supposed to come back and let us take out the sutures in about 10 days or so. So I don’t get to keep him, but I do get to see him again!

Sometimes I really have to take myself in hand and try to remember that I have successfully mastered other large bodies of information and been successful in using that information to accomplish complex projects. This really isn’t any different except that the body of information is not only pretty big, but people’s lives literally depend on being able to not only learn the information but think clearly in using it. I get discouraged sometimes, and think that I really should have learned more by this time…aside from trying to be a good mother, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Not as important as being a good mom, but close. I try to remind myself that I have other skills and qualities that I bring to bear on this profession that are also critical to being successful, and that it just takes time and practice to put it all together. It can get tiring to work in an environment where everyone knows way more than you do! They are all really good about helping me learn—I don’t feel a bit like anyone looks down on me or is patronizing. I just feel like I’m not meeting my OWN expectations very well, and champing at the bit to get in there and do more than I’ve been able to do. My adviser, Lorna, is here this weekend and for two days next week to evaluate me and I’m a little nervous about that. But she is always very supportive and I need to remember it’s all about the learning and feedback and not so much about the grade.

I got a phone call Friday night from my son Blake, who has been fighting fire with his hot shot crew up above the Arctic Circle. He’s back in Fairbanks with his crew, now with a 2^nd degree chemical burn on his back from a leaking dolmar. He’s a sawyer, so has to pack a saw and gas when they hike in, and it saturated his shirt and burned him pretty good by the time they got where they were going. He’ll have more scar stories to tell his grandchildren. He loved his time up there as much as I did when I went out on fire, and we shared some good laughs and stories. I can’t wait to see his pictures and hear more about his time up there. He flies back to Missoula in a chartered NIC jet on Monday, so sounds like they might have Sunday in Fairbanks to see the town a bit. They are camped on Ft. Wainwright where the jumper base and all the fire offices and dispatch are located, and are supposed to do some kind of project work tomorrow.

On Sunday I have to move out of this nice apartment and will be in the local motel until I fly out on the 28^th. But EAT is very generous and will be paying for it. They have been very good to me—just goes to show how difficult it is to get people to come here and stay that they are spending a fair amount on recruiting. So I won’t have the same phone number and will have to find out what the number is at the motel. If it's urgent, you can still get me at the clinic at 907-383-5131.

More anon...